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- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 19:24:00 CST
- Sender: Discussions on all forms of Music <ALLMUSIC@AUVM.BITNET>
- From: OGRADYT@GBVAXA.UWGB.EDU
- Subject: Re: Take-home exam
- Lines: 27
-
- Re: Schnittke's comments about synthesis.
- With all due respect to Schnittke, his speculations in regard
- to future musical styles that will represent a syntheses of
- "all the music one had heard since childhood" seem
- problematic in at least two respects (besides the ones
- suggested in the question):
- 1) musical synthesis that are actually equally balanced (or
- close to it) in the degree to which they draw on different
- styles have not always been too popular in the west. This
- has been particularly true in American popular music. We are
- willing to accept South African pop music in sofar as it
- meshes sttylistically with characteristics that define pop to
- us (the fact that it does is hardly unexpected given the
- importance of the African American tradition as a source of
- the rock tradition and the successful importation of western
- musical style into Africa for more than a century), but when
- a synthesis draws more equally from its source
- material, e.g., George Harrison's 1960s experiments with
- Indian flavored western pop, we tend to have great difficulty
- with it. Were they unpopular because they were poorly done
- or because they strayed too far from the comfort zone of
- western pop?
- 2) A synthesis of all of the different styles to which
- Americans are exposed might be less than rich simply because
- there is so little diversity of style for listeners
- preoccupied with pop--commercial or alternative.
- What sort of syntheses might be the most successful?
-